Tuesday, December 20, 2016

In the very beginning I want to warn you:
These new language features are not available in the SQL Server product yet. Only in Community Technical Preview. Moreover, the Community Technical Preview (CTP 1.1) is available for Linux Edition of SQL Server.

Four newest T-SQL features:

#1. Trimming.

Count, how many times in your SQL programming life you've used the construction "RTRIM(LTRIM(...))" to get rid of empty spaces at the beginning and at the end of a string.
How many times you have wished to have a simple function "TRIM" to do the job?
And here it is:

Edit: 2017-01-26
Now you can aggregate your strings by using function "STRING_AGG" with ordering by certain field:

SELECTSTRING_AGG(name, ', ') WITHIN GROUP ( ORDER BY object_id DESC)FROM master.sys.tables;

#4 Translation.

Microsoft introduced new T-SQL function "TRANSLATE", which simply replaces characters within a string. For a string you want to do a replacement for you have to specify two series of characters: one is "originals" and second is "replacements". Both these series must have equal length.

Looks awesome, isn't it?
However, the restriction that second and third parameters are must be same size makes this function not usable for conversion of text for XML, where we have to replace special 5 XML characters: "&'<">".
Also, if we want to keep consistency of capitalization, our database must be in case sensitive collation.

So the current timeline for SQL On Linux looks like this:
- March, 2016 - first public announcement at a conference in NYC and starting it's private preview and testing;
- November, 2016 - After several monthly releases preview became public with CTP 1 (Community Technology Preview);
- Middle 2017 - Production market target for the product;

Alternatives

So, businesses currently have following "free"* alternatives based on Linux:

MySQL

PostgreSQL

MariaDB

* I put word "free" in quotes because it does not include all associated risks.

Main risks of "free" solutions:

1. Security.

2. Scalability.

If you are small company, which does not store any customers' data in a database you might be OK with security. However, if you expect your line of business to grow 10 times in the next 5 years?

Will current free Linux databases be sustainable enough to support your database then?

Think about all development effort you put in free database product and about an effort to migrate that database to enterprise level with Oracle or Microsoft.

So, the solution is simple: Go with SQL Server on Linux!

SQL Server on Linux provides all necessary security and it is scalable to the enterprise level without any extra-migration programming effort.

Expectations:

(Disclaimer: I'm not working for Microsoft and do not have a Crystal Ball. All my expectations are only MINE and can go as knowledgeable suggestions. You can disagree or agree and support me)

So, I'd expect Microsoft to provide free version of SQL Server on Linux (Express/Small Business) with following limitations:

CPU - up to 4 cores;

Memory - up to 16 Gb;

DB Size - up to 100 Gb;

I know, adepts of Microsoft will say: "-We can't give such a wonderful product for free!".

For that I have a justification from Oracle:

In year of 2000, when Microsoft gave away free SQL Server Desktop edition called MSDE, the limit in database size was 2GB!

Look at the diagram and compare it with 2016 limit in 10 GB.

So, if we are targeting going into production in 2017 with most of customer project deployments started in 2018, current SQL Express limitations will be absolute No-No for any business case scenario.

That might be against Microsoft line of business to give away free business product, but that move would make SQL Server #1 database in the world. People would forget about any other free alternatives.

I think only one argument might stop Microsoft from following that scenario. As I mentioned earlier, domination of Microsoft in the Database segment of the world market would make it a monopoly with all following consequences.

Currently Supported features:

Database engine:

In-Memory OLTP;

Updatable Columnstore Indexes;

JSON Support;

Query Store;

High Availability:

Failover clustering;

Security:

Only SQL Server authentication is currently available;

Row Level Security;

Dynamic Data Masking;

Services:

SQL Server Service;

SQL Server on Linux Target Audience

If my expectations become true in the middle of 2017 than here is a small list of beneficiaries:

Small businesses – Low cost;

New businesses – Low cost with big potential growth;

Enterprise businesses – Reduced cost on multiple servers;

SQL Server oriented teams;

In the nearest future I'll cover some technicals of SQL Server on Linux.